Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah on Wednesday said she was appalled and shocked by the “unfair and unfounded attack” from the UK against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government’s Department of Justice decision to hire David Perry, a prominent British counsel, for a local court case.
Speaking to reporters at the Legislative Council, Cheng said this will allow the public to see clearly the existential pressure that the foreign powers are exerting on the city, and Hong Kong should exercise all efforts to combat such pressure.
Cheng’s remarks came after the department announced its decision to switch its leading prosecutor after Perry recused himself from the case, citing concerns over such pressure and the exemption of quarantine.
The Department of Justice will control criminal prosecutions, free from any interference, as stipulated in the Basic Law Article 63, and firmly, fairly and fearlessly handle prosecution, given the pressure it has faced owing to the high profile of the case, Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah said
Perry was invited to lead the prosecution on an unlawful assembly case from August 2019 that involves nine people, some of whom are leading figures in the opposition camp such as founder of Apple Daily Jimmy Lai Chee-ying. The 10-day hearing is set to begin on Feb 16.
In light of the public interest involved and the imminent trial date, the DoJ has instructed another counsel to prosecute the trial as scheduled, the department said in a statement on Wednesday morning.
Cheng said the new counsel is local and will not be disclosed according to department convention.
The department will control criminal prosecutions, free from any interference, as stipulated in the Basic Law Article 63, and firmly, fairly and fearlessly handle prosecution, given the pressure it has faced owing to the high profile of the case, Cheng said.
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Ronny Tong Ka-wah, a Hong Kong senior counsel and politician, worried about a chilling effect the UK’s action may bring as it might discourage many British counsels from accepting cases in Hong Kong.
Tong also expressed concerns about the misperception in the international community that Hong Kong’s judicial independence and rule of law have been undermined. If that’s the case, the city would need to put in good efforts to prove the opposite, he said.
Grenville Cross, a senior counsel and former head of public prosecutions in Hong Kong, said the criticism is another example of orchestrated political pressure from anti-China forces, such as last summer’s effort to pressure overseas judges to resign from the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.
The “squalid campaign” launched by the anti-China forces in the UK to publicly shame Perry by honoring those accused as “well-known democracy campaigners” are not supported by the facts, Cross said.
The defendants were brought to trial only because of their suspicion of willfully flouting the law by participating in an illegal gathering, Cross said in an article published in China Daily on Tuesday.
“In Hong Kong, as in the UK, nobody is above the law, and suspected lawbreakers will be prosecuted, evidence permitting, even if they have big-name allies elsewhere,” he wrote.
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Unfounded criticisms expose an ignorance of Hong Kong’s situation, he wrote, noting as an example that the Daily Telegraph had wrongly characterized the case in question as falling under the National Security Law for Hong Kong.
Cross called Perry “an inspired choice” to lead the prosecution, citing his extensive experience in handling high-profile cases such as the bribery trial of former chief secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan and the forgery trial of high-profile feng shui practitioner Peter Chan Chun-chuen.
In a post on his social media account, Leung Chun-ying, a vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a former Hong Kong chief executive, also questioned why some UK politicians attacked Perry’s engagement in Lai’s case, while voicing no objections to his previous engagements in Hong Kong.
There is no question that Western countries have openly enlisted leading figures of the opposition camp to meddle in the city’s affairs in the past two years, he said.
Hong Kong lawmaker and solicitor Holden Chow Ho-ding accused some British politicians of putting politics over the rule of law and interfering with the city’s judicial independence.
